Contract law enforces promises only when stakes are high and reliance is costly
Evidence
Laws of promise keeping can have substantial force for exchange promises but little or none for coordination promises. They commonly have little force for gratuitous promises—unless there is subsequent reliance that gives the promisee a loss relative to the status quo ante if the promise is not fulfilled. Even for exchange promises, the law usually enters only if the stakes are relatively high and there has been some reliance that would prove costly if the promise were not fulfilled. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 327
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
Related
- Legal enforcement of promises requires high stakes plus costly reliance on nonfulfillment (similarity 0.92)
- Contracts make breach costly while promises invoke future distrust as sanction (similarity 0.79)
- Trustworthiness enforced only by contract threats is not genuine trust (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- Contractual trust fails where state enforcement is sporadic
#qualifies(0.75) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2426 - Promises fall into three kinds with different legal enforceability
#qualifies(0.72) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 326